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Katelyn Jones
PhD Candidate, University of Wisconsin-Madison
WPSA 2013, 15.16
DRAFT: Please do not circulate or cite
Recovering Solitude: Arendt and Emerson on Solitude and Political Participation
Abstract
How can solitude contribute to politics? Is time alone necessarily at odds with political
participation or rather necessary for constructive public dialogue? In an increasingly
interconnected world, people seem rarely to think about the potential value of time away from
others or from the social media that keep them in constant contact. Recent political theory, too,
has apparently abandoned the question of solitude; it has turned its attention instead to a focus
on issues of social interaction. Curiously, Communications research today has taken particular
interest how time alone, particularly time online, can contribute to politics and encourage civic
engagement. In this paper, I propose that there are two ways of being alone: bridging solitude
and bonding solitude. I use Hannah Arendt’s theory of solitude to illustrate bridging solitude and
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works to illustrate bonding solitude. I argue that Arendt’s understanding
of solitude as bridging provides a theoretical basis for understanding phenomena observed in
recent Communications research and helps us understand how bridging solitude can be
encouraged when one is online and, therefore, make time alone a form of capital that contributes
to civic engagement.
Introduction
At the advent of the internet-age, Howard Rheingold reflected on the possible affects of
technology on life, community, and relationships: “Because of its potential influence on so many
people’s beliefs and perceptions, the future of the Net is connected to the future of community,
democracy, education, science, and intellectual life—some of the human institutions people hold
most dear, whether or not they know or care about the future of computer
technology” (Rheingold 1993, 6). Drawing on personal experiences, Rheingold strongly
advocated for the benefits of the internet for individuals, communities, and politics (13). What
changed, then, between 1993 and 2000, when Robert Putnam detailed technological
advancements as one of the major reasons for the demise of community and social capital in the
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United States? According to Putnam, the internet boomed and the ideas of community and faceto-face relationship building that were so important at its advent diminished in importance and
the potential for social capital was eradicated. However, the real problem may be the failure to
use the Internet as a new mode of social capital.
In Bowling Alone (2000) Putnam argues that the contemporary demise in social capital
stems from a lack of community or trustworthiness that allows beneficial social networking to
happen. He explains social capital: “[S]ocial capital is closely related to what some have called
‘civic virtue.’ The difference is that ‘social capital’ calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is
most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of
many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital” (Putnam 2000,
19). Social capital is the actual, face-to face, relationships and connections, what Putnam
considers to be communities, that yield reciprocity and help goals to be achieved and politics to
happen. Hence, internet technology and other such innovations that do not depend on face-toface interaction undermine what Putnam understands to be the defining characteristic of social
capital.1
Accepting Putnam’s argument that widespread isolation, a lack of interest in face-to-face
community building, creates a deficit in social capital, the question then arises as to how the
United States might cope with this, how the United States might rebuild its social capital. At the
conclusion of Bowling Alone, Putnam identifies six spheres of American life that need attention
so that communities and the resultant social capital may again be formed. These areas are youth
Putnam is not alone in this idea that only face-to-face communication sufficiently contributes to social capital in a
liberal democratic environment. Habermas notes, “In the context of liberal regimes, the rise of millions of
fragmented chat rooms across the world tend instead to lead to the fragmentation of large but politically focused
mass audiences into a huge number of isolated issue publics” (Habermas 2006, 414, fn. 14). Hence, internet
“communities” fail to provide any social capital that can benefit or is essential to politics.
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and schools; the workplace; urban and metropolitan design; religion; arts and culture; and
politics and government (Putnam, 2000, 404). Recognizing the dominance of internet technology
in communication today, Putnam stresses that he does not think the internet should be eradicated,
but rather that it should be used to reinforce, and not replace, face-to-face social networks
(Putnam 2000, 411; Putnam & Feldstein 2003). He suggests, like Rheingold and others before
him, that the benefits of internet communities lie in the face-to-face connections that come from
it rather than from the isolated conversations held remotely (Rheingold 1993; Castells 1996).
However, making such face-to-face contact happen is difficult, and while encouraging spending
and focusing on things like urban planning, the arts, and education can help with this, the
foundational solution is to encourage individuals to strive for community. As Putnam concludes
Bowling Alone, “We should do this [e.g. focus on building communities], ironically, not because
it will be good for America—though it will be—but because it will be good for us” (Putnam,
2000, 414).
In this paper, I focus on Putnam’s assertion that basic changes in community will only
happen if individuals elect to do so for their own good, “because it will be good for us.” While
Putnam provides pragmatic policy options for invigorating social capital in the United States, his
basic call for individuals to change and strive for community remains the most important call to
community in his work (Putnam 2000, 403, 411, 414). Thus, I propose that there is a seventh
way by which community and social capital can be restored by focusing on the individual and
encouraging a particular way of spending time alone.
Given technology’s increasing prevalence in society and the accompanying increase in
potential for isolation, I argue that perhaps the best way to address the demise of community is to
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address how individuals spend time alone, that is, how people spend time by themselves, away
from the public space of politics. As such, the Internet becomes a way of creating new social
capital rather than something that ends community. Such a consideration of how people use the
internet is not at all novel. Researchers in the area of communications and American politics
typically evaluate the time that people spend online with a schema of sorts, specifically whether
one’s online activities are politically-, friendship-, or interest-driven, to determine the affects of
time online on civic engagement (Cohen and Kahne 2012; Kahne, Lee, & Feezell 2011; Ito et al.,
2009).
I suggest that one can understand time spent physically alone as a form of social capital
and, therefore, to be understood as either “bridging” or “bonding.” Putnam explains these two
forms of social capital as follows:
[O]f all the dimensions along which forms of social capital vary, perhaps the most
important is the distinction between bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or
exclusive). Some forms of social capital are, by choice or necessity, inward
looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogenous groups.
Examples of bonding social capital include ethnic fraternal organizations, churchbased women’s reading groups, and fashionable country clubs. Other networks are
outward looking and encompass people across diverse social cleavages. Examples
of bridging social capital include the civil rights movement, many youth service
groups, and ecumenical religious organizations (Putnam, 2000, 22).
He goes on to explain, “[B]ridging social capital can generate broader identities and reciprocity,
whereas bonding social capital bolsters our narrower selves” (23). Thus, bridging social capital is
that which involves an openness to others and deliberation whereas bonding social capital is that
which involves a cementing of group or individual identity. Both can be normatively good for
society, but bridging social capital is the form of social capital understood to help individuals and
society advance or “get ahead” (Granovetter 1973; de Souza Briggs 1998).
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To develop the idea that solitude can be either bridging or bonding social capital, I first
define solitude broadly as a relational experience that one has when physically alone. Then, I
proceed to apply this definition of solitude to two thinkers’, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s and Hannah
Arendt’s, work and consider how the relationships present within their respective understandings
of solitude affect the relationships that develop from solitude. While Arendt engaged directly
with Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience” (Arendt 1972), Arendt’s reflections on solitude and
underlying theoretical connections between friendship, truth, and solitude strikingly parallel
Emerson’s thought on the essential relatedness of friendship, truth, and solitude.2 I consider
solitude as social capital in Arendt’s and Emerson’s work because both thinkers understand
solitude to yield a certain form of relationship with others, but the relationships that result from
their understandings of solitude are notably different. I argue that Arendt’s solitude, which
encourages beneficial friendship in dialogue, is bridging/inclusive, whereas Emerson’s solitude,
which encourages utilitarian friendship, is bonding/exclusive. After interpreting their theories as
such, I go on to suggest that Arendt’s vision of solitude provides a helpful model, insofar as it is
bridging, by which people today might spend time alone for the benefit of both themselves and
for American society and politics at large. Ultimately, I make practical suggestions, using both
Arendt and Communications research, for how applying ideas of bridging solitude makes the
Internet a valuable resource for social capital and what it would look like and mean for
contemporary American politics. Arendt’s theory of solitude provides novel theoretical insight
2
This connection between Arendt and Emerson is especially laid out in George Kateb’s “Arendt’s
Individualism” (1994), in which he writes, “In an uncanny resemblance to Emerson’s views, Arendt reads Socrates
as closely linking the dialogue of friendship with the attainment of truth. Truthful individuals make good
citizens” (770-1).
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into the empirical findings of recent Political Science and Communications research on how time
alone and online can contribute to politics.
Defining Solitude
In this paper, I use “solitude” in the positive sense. That is, I do not use solitude in the
sense that it is a punishment. Rather, when I refer to solitude, I draw on the tradition of solitude
being something elective. To develop a definition especially useful in the context of this paper, I
turn to the definitions of solitude contemporary to Emerson and Arendt. In the 1850 edition of
Webster’s dictionary, a dictionary contemporary to Emerson, solitude is defined as “1.
Loneliness; a state of being alone; a lonely life. 2. Loneliness; remoteness from society;
destitution of company. 3. A lonely place; a desert” (Webster 1850). Interestingly, a German
dictionary contemporary to Arendt defines solitude (einsamkeit) as “being with [or by] oneself;
living away from others”3 (Grimm 1965). Given these two definitions, I suggest that solitude is
something that happens when away from other people. Further, I suggest, given the German
definition of solitude as the state of being “with (or by) oneself,” that it also consists of
relationships that develop while physically separate from other people.
3
The German definition is under the entry for “einsam,” which reads: “mit sich allein; von andernm Lebenden
entfert.”
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Such an understanding makes sense given the long history of thoughts on solitude.4 I
propose, in line with these understandings of solitude, that solitude can best be understood in
terms of relationships that one has when physically separate from other people. Hence, the
relationships that arise from or in solitude can be with God, gods, other people, nature, thoughts,
etc. This means that there are various forms that solitude can take, and it can vary across people.
For example, solitude for Thoreau would be understood as one’s relationship with nature and
self, whereas Merton’s solitude would be defined as one’s relationship with God. In short, I
broadly define solitude as the relationships that define an individual’s existence separate from
others or a public space, and I will use this definition of solitude to discern the kind of solitude
found in Emerson’s and Arendt’s thoughts.
Emerson: Bonding Solitude
Emerson’s vision of solitude is most clearly presented in Nature when he explains how an
individual enters solitude: “To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber
as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man
would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will
separate between him and vulgar things” (Emerson 1968, 9). For Emerson, solitude is the most
natural state for man, in which the individual frees himself from manufactured, “vulgar” things
4 A very
abbreviated list of thinkers who engage with solitude includes: Epictetus, Evagrius Ponticus, Montaigne,
Rousseau, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Merton, and general monastic thought. Epictetus defines solitude as dwelling within
oneself (Epictetus 1995, Book 3, Chapter 13 of Discourses). Evagrius Ponticus defines solitude as a spiritual
practice in which one frees the self from the world to better understand himself and the world around him (Evagrius
Ponticus 2003). Rousseau discusses solitude as a space away from the dominant society in which one engages with
nature free from society (Rousseau 2011, Walk 7). In “Of three kinds of association,” Montaigne writes, “Solitude of
place, to tell the truth, rather makes me stretch and expand outward; I throw myself into affairs of state and into the
world more readily when I am alone” (Montaigne 1976, 625). In all these instances, solitude is some kind of
relationship, whether it is with self, with another, or with nature.
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and embraces the world. Emerson explains the solitary individual as one who is separate from
society, an entity that Emerson describes as “in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of
its members” and destroys the liberty of the individual (Emerson 1841). In solitude, Emerson
argues that the individual preserves his liberty in the face of society and more fully engages with
the life of man than one who is absorbed in society. Solitude, for Emerson, is characterized by
the solitary person’s relationship with nature and with self.
Although Emerson seemingly presents solitary experiences as fundamentally separate
from and unrelated to other people, his later reflections indicate that this is not the case. In his
essay, “Friendship,” Emerson illustrates his understanding of the individual’s solitary experience
as fundamentally and definitionally complementing society via the connection of friendship.
Emerson understands solitude as relational insofar as solitude informs social engagement and
friendship informs the individual’s self-realization. He reflects, “I chide society, I embrace
solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded,
as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine--a
possession for all time” (Emerson 1982, 34). This statement presents Emerson’s idea that a
certain society, a society of friendship, is a good society insofar as it is a natural outgrowth of
solitude. For Emerson, it is good because the other person, the friend, becomes a possession and
therefore contributes to the solitary person’s quest for self-knowledge and truth. The friend is a
useful person in the quest for self-reliance, and this relationship that develops from solitude is
consequently utilitarian. 5 Acknowledging the relationship between solitude and friendship,
This understanding of utilitarian friendship is established in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (BookVIII). It is a
relationship that exists for some kind of material benefit for each of the persons involved in the relationship: “Those
who are friends for utility dissolve the friendship as soon as the advantage is removed; for they were never friends of
each other, but of what was expedient for them” (1157a.15). In the case of Emerson, individuals are only friends for
the benefit of solidifying personal truths.
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Emerson’s understanding of solitude can be expanded to consist of the solitary individual’s
relationship with nature, self, and other persons whom the solitary person deems useful in the
search for self-knowledge and truth.
Emerson explains this idea that relationship with other like-minded persons is present in
solitude when he writes,
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I
am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even
those under-most garments of dissimulation courtesy, and second thought, which
men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with
which one chemical atom meets another (Emerson 1982, 43).
Even though as a solitary individual he “chides” society, Emerson holds that his solitude gives
him the ability to sense the person who “understands” him and can help him in his quest for the
simplicity of truth. In solitude, one develops a relationship with oneself that allows that helps one
discern which people can be most helpful in this questioning. Solitude makes it possible for the
individual to recognize those who can be dealt with simply and wholly. Emerson therefore argues
that solitude helps cultivate a level of social deliberation that he believes cannot exist without
solitude preceding and founding its establishment. Emersonian solitude consists of relationships
with nature and self that lend to relationships with other similar people who “understand,” i.e.
people who the solitary person can claim as useful in the search for truth.
In Society and Solitude (1870), Emerson details the story of a backwoodsman who
identifies a lack of solitude as resulting in a less meaningful kind of society, a society without the
friendship described above:
A backwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told me that, when he
heard of the best-bred young men at he law-school talk together, he reckoned
himself a boor; but whenever he caught them apart, and had one to himself alone,
then they were all boors, and he the better man. And if we recall the rare hours
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when we encountered the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first
society seemed to exist (Emerson 1870, 11).
Emerson uses the backwoodsman anecdote to explain the idea that friendships are characteristic
of solitude. While the backwoodsman encountered groups of men in law school, he reckoned
himself a boor because he was not well versed in legal matters. However, when he was able to
talk to them individually, the backwoodsman realized that the young men were not capable of
meaningful conversation, that is, that the young men were not useful in his search for truth and
self-knowledge. Emerson’s curious ending to the anecdote, “And if we recall the rare hours when
we encountered the best persons, we then found ourselves, and then first society seemed to
exist,” indicates that Emerson believes individuals who flock in groups and are unable to speak
for themselves are individuals who have not engaged in solitude. Consequently, their apparent
society of law students is not a society at all, but rather a collective of individuals who do not
have the sense of self or the other that solitude cultivates. The relationships that help one on the
quest for truth exist characterize solitude for Emerson, and without solitude, those relationships
are nonexistent. The law students that the backwoodsman encounters are searching for degrees
rather than truth, and they cannot serve the useful purpose of a friend for the backwoodsman who
lives a solitary life.
Perceivably, Emerson does not endorse large groups of friends, as in the tale of the
backwoodsman, because such groups present more of a threat to the individual’s selfhood than
one other person who one can claim as a “possession for all time.” Emerson stresses the
significance of individual identity within the social outgrowth of solitude, writing, “[T]hough I
prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my
own” (Emerson 1982, 59). Friendship, in Emerson’s understanding, is not intended to change the
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individual’s identity, but rather to cement it. Friendship for Emerson, although it strives for some
perceivable higher good, fundamentally strives for that which is good for the individual himself.
It is not a dialectical exchange and molding of identity, but rather a useful relationship that helps
one know oneself.
Just as Emerson stresses the importance of maintaining an individual identity in
“Friendship,” he stresses the same in Society and Solitude, saying, “The remedy is, to reinforce
each of these moods from the other. Conversation will not corrupt us if we come to the assembly
in our own garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what is ours and reject what
is not” (Emerson 1870, 12). Solitude illuminates the truth such that the individual develops a
capacity to “select” what is properly true and what is not. The backwoodsman represents the
solitary person who has this knowledge of truth and is capable of sharing it within the society of
friendship that he has come to understand through his individual experience of solitude. Solitude
consists of a relationship with self that yields relationships with others, friends, that help the
individual to find himself by helping him on the search for truth.
This insight into Emersonian solitude is not entirely novel. George Kateb reflects,
Although a person must depend for various reasons on various relationships in
society, only one sort turns out to be from its very nature intrinsic both to selfacquaintance and self-reliance; only one sort of relationship helps solitude
accomplish its major work of receiving the world in truth. That is friendship.
Finding society means finding the right company; it does not mean looking for the
good society (Kateb 1995, 101).
Friendship helps solitude accomplish its task--receiving the world in truth through selfacquaintance. Kateb and I recognize Emerson presenting friendship as not an objective concept,
but rather a matter of personal reflection and determination of what is “right” for an individual.
The question for the solitary person is, “Who will help me understand myself better?”, rather
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than, “Who will help me understand universal ‘good’ truths?” One can only realize one’s selfacquaintance and self-reliance in finding another person with whom one can understand the truth
of the world. Solitude makes friendship possible, and in Emerson’s account, necessarily precedes
any society that is worthwhile and can result in the acquisition or comprehension of the
important truths of things. Solitude begins with a relationship with oneself and with nature and
continues with a relationship with a friend, an individual with whom one can continue to look for
truth and know oneself.
The good society can only result when one finds someone that one can possess and,
consequently, continue to work for self-reliance. For Emerson, modern society is a means for the
ends of individuals, and the friendship described above is a perfect example of Emerson’s
individualistic focus on society (Kateb 2011, 75). Emerson does not envision the most
worthwhile gathering as involving all people, but rather a few people who help one attain selfreliance to find truth. This is not to say, however, that Emerson does not envision or desire all
people being equally able to attain solitarily and self-reliant driven friendships. As Turner
explains Emerson’s thought, “Emersonian self-reliance becomes a politically dynamic ethical
ideal, one that can motivate and energize democratic political action Insofar as citizens are
interested in being self-reliant, Emerson’s example can help us address the problem of civic
motivation in the United States--for Emerson illustrates how moral self-examination, avoiding
complicity, and political action are essential to self-reliance” (Turner 2011, 28). Emerson’s drive
for self-reliance does not exclude a concern for others to become equally self-reliant and,
therefore, indicates that Emerson endorses the equal opportunity of self-reliance for all. This is
why he can be understood as an example of living the responsibilities of citizenship in his
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support for the abolition of slavery and for women’s suffrage (Gougeon 2011, 214). However,
Emerson does not envision all self-reliant people as banning together and forming mass
communities. He sees self-reliant people having specific, useful relationships that allow others to
do the same; he does not envision an entire country collectively engaging in his vision of
friendship.
Given his understanding of friendship, one can understand that Emerson envisions
society as functioning more upon the basis of exclusive individuals and friendships.
Consequently, I suggest that his understanding of solitude can be understood as bonding, that is,
exclusive and reinforcing of homogenous groups. Emerson understands solitude to help one
create a homogenous group that helps in the quest for self-reliance; it may also compel one to
work so that other people can freely develop their own self-reliant existences, as Emerson’s own
civic engagement indicates. Emersonian solitude is that which opens one to relationships with
nature, with oneself, and with other likeminded people who can become one’s “possessions,” all
of which contribute to one’s self-reliance. Solitude does not open one up to networking and new
connections but rather cements one’s identity and encourages small-group homogeneity and a
society of multiple homogenous groups.
Arendt: Bridging Solitude
Like Emerson, I argue that Hannah Arendt presents solitude as relationships that arise out
of a time away from society or the public space. However, unlike Emerson, I suggest that
Hannah Arendt’s understanding of solitude is bridging, that is, one that entails relationships that
are neither homogenous or self-reflecting. While Roger Berkowitz has grappled with Arendt’s
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understanding of solitude by presenting solitude as a space in which thinking occurs, I argue that
Arendt does more than provide solitude as a space of thought (Berkowitz 2010). I understand
Arendt to present solitude as the relationships that define an individual’s time alone and inform
an individual’s time with others.
Arendt most clearly presents the relationality of solitude in her comparison of solitude
with isolation. While one may understand the isolation that totalitarianism breeds to be solitude,
Arendt maintains that this is not the case. She describes the experience of solitude, and
differentiates it from isolation, as follows:
In solitude, in other words, I am “by myself,” together with my self, and therefore
two-in-one, whereas in loneliness I am actually one, deserted by all others. All
thinking, strictly speaking, is done in solitude and is a dialogue between me and
myself; but this dialogue of the two-in-one does not lose contact with the world of
my fellow-men because they are represented in the self with whom I lead the
dialogue of thought (Arendt 1966, 476).
Arendt holds that solitude is distinct from isolation because it allows others’ individualities to
present themselves to and engage in dialogue with the solitary individual. In Arendt’s
conception, a person practicing solitude is physically separate from the world, but nonetheless
open to and able to communicate rationally with his fellow-men, much as he would be able to do
in a political community. Solitude is the thoughtful relationships with others that arise and are
made possible when one is alone.
To illustrate the relationships that Arendt sees being made possible in solitude, it is
helpful to consider her essays on Gotthold Lessing in Men in Dark Times. Writing on Gotthold
Lessing, Arendt focuses on his contributions as a German critic and advocate for intellectual
freedom. Lessing is one of Germany’s great dramatists and critics. He lived from 1729-1781, and
he reflected on the Seven Years War’s affects in his works. In Minna von Barnheim, Lessing used
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the work to speak against the mass militarization that happened during the Seven Year’s War.
Later, in Emilia Galotti, Lessing voiced his opposition to absolute government. While his play’s
criticism escaped attention and repercussions, his endorsement of freedom of speech evident in
defending an article with anti-Christian sentiments led to his loss of publishing rights in 1772,
after which Lessing published independently and pled for intellectual tolerance in his works
(Sime 1878).
Perhaps the most intriguing idea that becomes clear in her writing on Lessing is that
Arendt identifies solitude as providing a kind of mobility that isolation prohibits. She writes,
“Lessing retreated into thought, but not at all into his own self; and if for him a secret link
between action and thought did exist (I believe it did, although I cannot prove it by quotations),
the link consisted in the fact that both action and thought occur in the form of movement and
that, therefore, freedom underlies both: freedom of movement” (Arendt 1968, 9). Arendt
interprets Lessing as embracing a dialogue and discourse that does not seek truths, but rather is
constantly moving and encouraging of friendship, which Lessing only found possible when
people reject the idea of universal or objective truths and engaged in discourse (Arendt 1968, 26,
30). Lessing demonstrates that thinking allows one to engage in discourse, a discourse that is
moving and changing, in the face of a totalitarian ideology that is stagnant and discouraging of
change. Such dialogue provides an intellectual relationality that is absent from isolation and,
therefore, unique to solitude.
Arendt goes on to write, “Lessing’s greatness does not merely consist in a theoretical
insight that there cannot be one single truth within the human world but in his gladness that it
does not exist and that, therefore, the unending discourse among men will never cease so long as
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there are men at all” (Arendt 1968, 27). Arendt indicates that Lessing’s solitary thoughtfulness
opened him to the possibility of friendship, a friendship that is “the unending discourse of men,”
but his openness to friendship remained unreturned. Lessing’s place in history precluded the
possibility of friendship, because other people were unable or unwilling to enter solitude so that
such thought-driven openness to unending discourse could happen (Arendt 1968, 30). While
Lessing was open to the possibility of movement in dialogue that does not seek truths, but rather
encourages friendship, his courage was unmatched by those around him who were unable, or
perhaps unwilling, to part ways with stagnant ideology in favor of destabilizing thinking and
friendship. Lessing’s peers were isolated, unable to create a stoic space of sovereign
independence from the outside, totalitarian world. Lessing engaged in solitude, which opened
him to dialogue and friendship, but he was unable to find another person equally open to
dialogue and friendship.
Although Lessing remained physically separate from his contemporaries and
intellectually alone in his thoughts, he was solitary such that he had relationships with others and
was open to the possibility of relationship with others such that he was open to dialogue and
discourse with a much broader range of people than his contemporaries. I suggest, therefore, that
Arendt understand solitude to be bridging insofar as it consists of a relationship with the world
and with other people that strives for plurality rather than consensus. Solitude bridges by
allowing and contributing to an individual’s acceptance and embracing of plurality.
Arendt’s Bridging Solitude: Plurality in Politics
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This understanding that solitude contributes to dialogue and friendship is made explicit in
Arendt’s posthumously published essay, “Philosophy and Politics.” She writes, “Only someone
who has had the experience of talking with himself is capable of being a friend, of acquiring
another self. The condition is that he be of one mind with himself, in agreement with
himself...because somebody who contradicts himself is unreliable” (Arendt 1990, 85). Arendt
understands a friend as someone with whom one can openly express his own doxa, one’s
uniqueness, and understand the doxai of others (Arendt 1990, 80). Ultimately, this understanding
of solitude as contributing to the active life points to the affects of solitude on the political
community and vice versa. George Kateb reflects, “I suppose [Arendt] means that in speaking
truthfully, in eventually being able to say what is really on one’s mind and how one judges
objects and events and conditions in the common world, one can be (if barely or incompletely)
oneself. Different (embodied) truths multiply the world and make it magnificent” (Kateb 1994,
772). Thus, the revelation of an individual’s doxa creates plurality in Arendt’s world and
solidifies the individual’s self-identity, thereby making the world “magnificent” and allowing
politics to happen. It is this dialogue in friendship that makes truth-seeking possible for Arendt.
While the essay “Philosophy and Politics” is admittedly distinct from themes in Arendt’s
oeuvre,6 I suggest that this idea of solitude relating to action can be understood and established in
her discussion of judgment, which establishes the idea that solitude contributes to a dialectical
6
In his piece, “Arendt’s Individualism,” Kateb (1994) repeatedly mentions how Arendt’s thoughts in this essay are
distinct from her body of work, most notably her understanding of Socrates and her focus on solitude. Kateb writes:
“The fact is that Arendt delivers in this unpublished piece an espousal of solitude that is not confined to its good
conscientious effects, just as her espousal of speaking of one’s doxa truthfully is not confined to its citizenly effects
but also generously accommodates its individualist significance. Solitude is the opening into every human plurality
as such” (772). Arendt’s explicit understanding of solitude’s political relevance is novel, but as I suggest, this
importance is clearly hinted at in her understanding, and again, somewhat underdeveloped understanding of
judgment.
Jones 18
plurality in both thought and, eventually, political participation.7 Here, I do not claim that
solitude and action collapse into one in Arendt’s theory, but rather that the plurality embraced in
solitude is realized in the public space via the faculty of judgment.8 Exploring the relationship
between solitude and political participation is something Arendt acknowledges as being
important, but never goes on to explore herself. She writes, “What matters is the unabridgeable
abyss that opened and has never been closed, not between the so-called individual and the socalled community (which is a late and phony way of stating an authentic ancient problem), but
between being in solitude and living together” (Arendt 2005, 85). Understanding Arendt’s
concept of judgment helps us comprehend the apparent abyss between solitude and living
together.
Arendt defines judgment as that which grounds one’s interactions with others. She
explains,
That the capacity to judge is a specifically political ability in exactly the sense
denoted by Kant, namely, the ability to see things not only from one’s own point
of view but in the perspective of all those who happen to be present; even that
judgment may be one of the fundamental abilities of man as a political being
insofar as it enables him to orient himself in the public realm, in the common
world—these are insights that are virtually as old as articulated political
experience (Arendt 1978, 221).
Arendt assumes judgment to be a human faculty that is essential to both the individual
deliberating and to the political experience itself. Further, Arendt asserts that judgment “enables
7
This dialectical understanding of relationships can be explained in Gadamer’s understanding of dialogue and
questioning as a relationship between “I and thou” in Truth and Method. Gadamer explains, “In human relations the
important thing is, as we have seen, to experience the Thou truly as Thou--i.e., not to overlook his claim but to let
him really say something to us” (Gadamer 1995, 361). In dialogue the “I” and the other, “Thou,” contribute equally
to dialogue so that questioning and consciousness can arise, and this is the same end of plurality and friendship
envisioned by Arendt.
8
Dana Villa (1999) particularly problematizes the tendency to collapse thinking and action in Arendt’s thought.
Here, I try to avoid that collapse and provide a new way to consider how solitude contributes to public opinion
sharing.
Jones 19
him [the individual] to orient himself in the public realm, in the common world.” This indicates
that judgment is essential to the political actor participating in the public realm insofar as
judgment allows the individual to locate and identify himself in the political community.
Judgment allows individualism to exist even in communal gatherings when one is susceptible to
lose subjectivity.
Arendt argues that the faculty of judgment that arises because of and within the
relationships that define solitude extends to the individual’s judgment in public, political
situations. Having established judgment as allowing the individual to locate himself in the
political, Arendt goes on to elaborate on how judgment determines public interactions in political
communities. The individual who judges does not solely judge history and actions but also
judges other people around him. She writes,
We all know very well how quickly people recognize each other, and how
unequivocally they can feel that they belong to each other, when they discover a
kinship in questions of what pleases and displeases. From the viewpoint of this
common experience, it is as though taste decides not only how the world is to
look, but also who belongs together in it (Arendt 1978, 223).
Arendt indicates that personal judgments, here described as the Kantian judgment of “taste,” one
makes with respect to subjective tastes help determine with whom one interacts and, ultimately,
the communities that form and in which people partake. Hence, the subjective experience of
judging something as simple as whether an object is appealing or not is an indicator of an
individual’s interactions with other people. Similar judgments contribute to the formation of
groups of people and “decide who belongs together.” Although Arendt does not extensively
elaborate on the idea that judgments play an important part in human fellowship, she clearly
Jones 20
establishes its influence on human interactions. Consequently, judgment inevitably influences the
political community with which one engages. 9
!
Through judgment, through considering right and wrong and reflecting on the past as
well as the opinions and experiences of others, people can come together and engage in
conversation—engage in politics. Arendt writes, “The more people’s standpoints I have present
in my mind while I am pondering a given issue, and the better I can imagine how I would feel
and think if I were in their place, the stronger will be my capacity for representative thinking and
the more valid my final conclusions, my opinion” (Arendt 1978, 242). Judgment validates the
individual actor’s importance in the political realm while not undermining the importance of
dialogue and communication with others. Judgment fosters and encourages plurality. Arendt
maintains,
The power of judgment rests on a potential agreement with others, and the
thinking process which is active in judging something is not, like the thought
process of pure reasoning, a dialogue between me and myself, but finds itself
always and primarily, even if I am quite alone in making up my mind, in an
anticipated communication with others with whom I know I must finally come to
some agreement (Arendt 1978, 220).
This statement illuminates Arendt’s understanding of politics not as the coming together to form
a consensus, but rather as the coming together to engage in a dialogue and a debate that embraces
the plurality that is an inherent part of the human condition. Judgment, like politics, depends on
the sharing of freely-formed opinions and the potential to persuade. As Dana Villa notes,
judgment is therefore not easy, which is perhaps why Arendt locates opinions and judgments
9
An example of this can be found in Arendt’s take on Eichmann, whose inability to think led him to elect to be in
the company of ideology rather than pluralistic society. Eichmann’s participation in the Holocaust, according to
Arendt, was mandated by the reigning Nazi ideology rather than by his own, personal judgment. In Eichmann in
Jerusalem, Arendt reflects specifically on the Nazi regime’s ideology and laws as transforming its followers into
people who obeyed inhumane laws rather than their most basic instinctive respect for human dignity (Arendt 2006,
149-50).
Jones 21
only existing in some form of Socratic friendship in “Philosophy and Politics” (Villa 1999, 106).
These opinions are created in solitary thought, in which one can commune with others, and then
translated to public discourse via friendships. Interestingly, solitude, like judgment, requires
logic and reason of people to persist to permit the free sharing of ideas and thoughts to strive for
a consensual action’s determination. Both Arendtian solitude and judgment require the individual
to intellectually engage with the opinions and perspectives of others while also requiring that the
solitary or judging person maintains his own subjective take on the world, founded in
experiences.
!
Understanding judgment as an entity that allows people to exist together in the political
realm immediately reveals the established tension in Arendt’s understanding of judgment. While
judgment occurs within the life of the mind and is informed by political dialogue, its role
definitionally extends beyond the intellect to contribute to human plurality. Herein lies
judgment’s underlying connection to solitude. Just as solitude necessarily involves a “two-inone” internal dialogue, judgment similarly places the individual’s subjective experiences in
conversation with other people’s own subjective experiences. As revealed in the experience of
thinkers such as Lessing described in Men in Dark Times, solitude makes plurality and the
consequential “endless discourse” possible. Solitude internally creates a community of dialogue
among subjective actors, and judgment intends to do the same. Solitude and contemplative
judgment require actual political dialogue with others to give the person the ability to create a
dialogue in which other opinions thrive. Claiming that learned judgment has consequences in the
political clearly echoes her conversation on judgment in “The Crisis in Culture” when she states,
Jones 22
“[J]udgment may be one of the fundamental abilities of man as a political being insofar as it
enables him to orient himself in the public realm, in the common world” (Arendt 1978, 221).
From this discussion, it should now be obvious that Arendtian judgment exists in two
forms: as an individual’s personal “two-in-one” dialogue that establishes his understanding of the
world and events, and as an individual’s contribution to the political by sharing thoughts and
acting in public. While understanding judgment as two seemingly distinct entities is initially
illogical, it should now be clear that Arendt’s lack of clarity demonstrates a general tension in her
thought between the communal and the solitary. Just as solitude counterintuitively involves a
“two-in-one” conversation, judgment counterintuitively involves both the individual’s solitary
thought and communal involvement. Arendt never philosophically reconciles the two facets of
judgment but rather constantly struggles with the tension latent in her understanding, most likely
because she could not determine a way to reconcile her concept of solitude with her foundational
focus on action. Rather than accepting this tension as a philosophical flaw, through
comprehending judgment’s similarities to solitude, it can be ascertained that this tension between
the individual and the community is simply part of Arendt’s understanding of the human
condition.10
Just as the solitary person definitionally imaginatively engages with the minds of other
people to establish an internal dialogue that is not totally removed from the human community, a
person in the process of establishing a judgment “does so by making present in one’s imagination
10
Arendt writes, “The question is not how to abolish discrimination, but how to keep it confined within the social
sphere, where it is legitimate, and prevent its trespassing on the political and the personal sphere, where it is
destructive” (Responsibility 206). Such an understanding of the issue at Little Rock reveals the importance of the
separation an individual must maintain from society. The exercise of judgment is one cultivated separately from the
community’s general interactions—it is nourished by churches, families, and solitude rather than by the laws. When
the line between the social and the political is muddled, so, too, is the capacity to judge.
Jones 23
those who are absent” (Arendt 1982, 92). The ability to make the thoughts of others present in
the judger’s mind is requisite for Arendt’s earlier concept of active judgment as well as her later
concept of judgment in thought; the internal dialogue extends to both the active and the
contemplative forms of judgment. To even imagine another individual’s thoughts to make a
judgment, one has to have, or have had, interaction among other people. The act of
contemplative judging, while solitary in nature, has undeniably communal roots insofar as the
imaginative dialogue requires some sort of interaction with others and is founded in the
singularity established in the individual’s experience in family.11 This solidifies Arendt’s idea of
judgment as an exemplary example of her understanding of solitude, which is especially
important since it is much easier to understand how judgment can potentially unite the solitary
with the political (vita activa). For the contemporary individual, one’s judgment is typically
understood as ultimately having consequence in the political, whether it determines with whom
one interacts, how one votes in an election, or the type of job one acquires. Arguably, it is the
revelation of judgment in the political that transforms an individual’s thought or opinion into an
active, rather than passive, judgment.
Hence, Arendtian judgment is closely related to solitude. In the contemplative life,
judgment is in fact identical to Arendtian solitude and, as such, inherently apolitical. In the active
life, judgment is a political and physical realization of the imagined “two-in-one” dialogue
among other people’s thoughts and ideas, a kind of political expansion on the family in which
one presumably learns how to judge in the first place. Arendtian solitude, therefore, bridges both
11
D’Entrèves illuminates a similar point in his essay, “Hannah Arendt’s theory of judgment.” He asserts that
spectators themselves are never alone and that the vita activa and the vita contemplativa are always somehow
interconnected for the individual. People must have the ability to act and to contemplate in order to be any kind of
judge (D’Entrèves 1994, 132). Thus, whether one judges as a spectator or an actor, the communal aspect of the
dialogue leading to the ultimate judgment unites Arendt’s earlier and later conceptualizations of judgment.
Jones 24
in thought and practice. Arendt herself expresses this idea, writing, “[Philosophers’] experience
in solitude has given them extraordinary insight into all those relationships which cannot be
realized without this being alone with one’s self, but has led them to forget that perhaps even
more primary relationships between men and the realm they constitute, springing simply form
the fact of human plurality” (Arendt 1994, 360). Arendt understands loneliness to be the
ignorance of plurality, whereas solitude is both the embracing and encouragement of plurality
through dialogue. In solitude, one asks important questions, and then in interacting with others,
the individual forms and contributes to plurality. Bridging solitude opens one to the possibility of
unending discourse in friendship and can be enacted as judgment in the political sphere that
allows plurality, and therefore politics, to happen.
Bridging Vs. Bonding Solitude: Applying Emerson and Arendt today
As Putnam and others explain, neither bridging nor bonding social capital is normatively
better or worse than the other. However, it is generally accepted that bridging social capital
contributes to economic and social progress and, therefore, is accepted as more helpful
politically (Putnam, 2000; de Souza Briggs, 1998; Granovetter, 1973). Given this fact about
bridging social capital, I suggest that Arendt’s understanding of solitude is more utile in
developing alone time as a form of social capital today insofar as it lends itself to the progress
and openness that Putnam encourages. This is not to say that Emerson’s vision of solitude is
entirely bad, but rather that the focus on heterogenous relationships and plurality as part of
solitude is more helpful in resolving the problem of “bowling alone” in the United States today.
In fact, I suggest that it is helpful to differentiate between bonding and bridging solitude if only
Jones 25
to better understand the multiple ways that one can be physically alone, yet have relationships
with oneself, nature, and others. Bonding solitude helps solidify self-identity that can ultimately
yield, as in Emerson’s own life, political action and engagement, and bridging solitude opens one
up to dialogue and plurality in such a way that politics, as Arendt and deliberative democrats
(Gutmann and Thompson, 2004; Mouffe, 2009; Rancière, 2011) understand the term, becomes
possible.
So, one might ask, what is the upshot of Arendtian bridging solitude? How can we learn
from Arendt and apply this idea of bridging solitude to spending time alone today? Drawing on
Arendt’s understanding of solitude’s relationship to plurality and on recent literature on
participatory politics, I argue that Arendt provides us with three practical means of engaging in
bridging solitude given today’s technology: Using common language in communication,
educating youths on how to find divergent views online, and encouraging participation in
interest-driven online activities. Arendt’s bridging solitude, understood as time alone that
embraces plurality and dialogue with others, elucidates how spending time alone online can
involve relationships, plurality, and dialogue, thereby encouraging and affecting pluralistic
politics. Her theory provides new insight into how and why time spent online can encourage
civic engagement.
Using Common Language
Exploration of communications via online mediums indicates that online conversations
do not only serve as places where opinions are shared, but also as places where opinions are
formed (Price, Nir, & Cappella 2006; Burnstein & Vinokur, 1977). That is, there is an
Jones 26
understanding that political engagement online involves some kind of shared language such that
individuals can both share opinions and contemplate the opinions of others. This methodological
understanding that online communication that has observable affects on opinion indicates the
importance of language in any kind of communication, especially that done when physically
separate from public space, insofar as it determines whether the communication can have any
affect beyond one’s mind or communication when physically alone. I suggest that Arendt
provides an important theoretical grounding upon which to understand the need for all
communication or dialogue when alone to approximate conversations and dialogue that happen
in public.
!
Arendt teaches us that if solitude is understood to represent the political realm in which
people naturally thrive, we must recognize solitude itself as entailing characteristics specific to
political dialogue. The language of politics is definitionally distinct from the language, for
example, that one would use when discussing matters of science. Since solitude is an individual’s
manifestation of the plurality that defines the human experience, this solitary experience must
necessarily entail the language typical of politics. To illustrate this point, it is helpful to consider
the differences between the alone experiences of the scientist and the alone experiences of one in
solitude. Although the scientist may appear to be a person who engages in solitude while
researching and considering counter-opinions and results, his conversation is recognizably
apolitical. His vocabulary consists of mathematical symbols and chemical notations rather than
that of quotidian conversations. As Arendt teaches us, politics is not a dialogue of simply any
vocabulary. She reflects on the dialect of politics in contrast to the dialect of science, writing,
“The scientist has not only left behind the layman with his limited understanding; he has left
Jones 27
behind a part of himself and his own power of understanding, which is still human
understanding, when he goes to work in the laboratory and begins to communicate in
mathematical language” (Arendt 1978, 268-9).
Although the scientist constantly engages in an internal dialogue as he strives to answer
questions and determine truths about nature, Arendt importantly points out that his language
remains uncommon and consequently unrepresentative of the human condition itself. He engages
with theoretical ideas rather than the reality of human experiences, much like Emerson’s solitary
man. The scientist’s time alone is ultimately isolating since it first limits the kinds of hypothetical
opinions he includes insofar as they must speak in his craft’s uncommon language and then
limits his ability to relate his dialogue’s conclusion in the political. Since solitude is an
individual’s internalization of the political, solitude must include the very language that is unique
to the human condition.
The individual who engages in a dialogue alone, separate from politics, that does not
reflect the language and experience of politics does not think in solitude. Rather, such a person is
ultimately isolated from the human experience. He dwells in thought completely separate and
distinct from the human condition that simultaneously embraces the individual’s distinctness and
humanity’s commonality. In the case of the scientist, his internal dialogue is not informed social
interactions, but rather by equations, symbols, and matters completely distinct from politics. He
engages in an intellectual conversation with notations instead of other people. The scientist is
unable to partake in politics because he is unable to contribute his singularity to the political
plurality; his vocabulary and aloneness sever him from politics insofar as they are distinct from
and uninfluenced by politics.
Jones 28
Undeniably, the individual who thinks in a dialect that uses a vocabulary so distinct from
the human condition into which he is born separates himself from his instinctive sociability. We
might understand his departure from individual experiences and entrance into a vocabulary
grounded in something other than the human condition as damaging to his very engagement in
the political. An internal dialogue that does not accurately reflect the politics in which the human
condition presents itself is not one of bridging solitude, but rather a separating dialogue that
pertains to bonding solitude. Bridging solitude embraces the pluralistic nature of politics and
prevents such departure from the political space in which people thrive. Bridging solitude
corrects the isolation and loneliness possible in time alone by ensuring the individual’s constant
intellectual engagement with actual others’ ideas and experiences. It ensures the individual’s
intellectual engagement with other political actors, not apolitical experiments and mathematical
notations that sever the individual’s ties to the political as evidenced by the scientist. Bridging
solitude allows the person to experience time alone and away from politics while remaining truly
worldly in thought.
Today, bridging solitude, therefore, entails the use of a common language that all can
understand and engage in. Given this understanding, online interactions that involve language
that only a minority of people can understand constitutes bonding solitude. The language of
bonding solitude cements a particular group’s homogeneous identity and does not encourage an
extension of the conversation in the public space. Unlike bonding solitude, bridging solitude
entails relationships that use the same language as that used in the public space, therefore
allowing conversations to easily translate to the public space. Practically, then, to encourage
Jones 29
bridging solitude, we might encourage people to partake in online relationships that reflect,
rather than ignore, the dominant language of communication.
Finding Divergent Opinions
In recent research on the effects of online activity on actual political and civic
engagement, scholars have found that the participation within the Internet remains remarkably
biased by age, race, and socioeconomic status (Cohen and Kahne, 2012; Lehman Schlozman,
Verba, & Brady, 2010). Given these findings, scholars have called for an increased awareness
among both researchers and Internet users of the lack of divergent opinions on most social media
websites. Just as Arendt encourages individuals to enlarge their mentalities in solitary thought,
we can understand that individuals participating in online conversations can be encouraged to
find online conversations that broaden, rather than narrow, the opinions made available to
people. Thus, given recent studies and Arendt’s theory that a certain kind of solitude that is
“enlarged” yields plurality, we can understand the need to encourage the encountering of
divergent opinions online. While this recommendation makes sense, the question then arises as
to how this can best be encouraged.
Encourage Interest-Driven Participation Online
Perhaps the best way to encourage the encountering of divergent opinions and ideas is to
encourage a particular form of online participation. Ito, et al. (2009) provide a basic schema of
participation: politically-driven, interest-driven, and friendship-driven. Politically-driven
participation consists of online activities that are explicitly political (such as visiting campaign
websites or political blogs); interest-driven participation consists of activities that allow people to
Jones 30
pursue hobbies, interests in popular culture, etc. online; and friendship-driven participation
consists of contact with people regularly encountered daily, such as friends, peers, and family,
via the Internet. While one might imagine that politically-driven participation would have the
largest effect on actual civic engagement (Bimber, 2003; Jennings & Zeitner, 2003; Mossberger,
Tolbert, & McNeal, 2008; Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005), recent literature on the matter of
actual civic engagement’s relationship to online activities indicates that interest-driven
participation online has the largest effect on actual civic engagement (Cohen and Kahne, 2012;
Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2011; Zuniga, Veenstra, Vraga, & Shah, 2010).
Kahne, et al. (2011) explain that participation in these interest-driven online communities
helps individuals generate real skills for organization and networking that eventually carry over
to offline civic engagement. Perhaps most interestingly, Cohen and Kahne (2012) also stress that
these interest-driven participatory communities online reach outside of the individual’s typical
social network not only by expanding the geographical proximity of connections but also by
exposing the individual to new ways of thinking that would otherwise be impossible. Such an
understanding of online participation as yielding plurality within the individual’s thought
process, physically separate from other people, indicates that interest-driven participation online
represents the bridging solitude that Arendt calls for. In contrast, friendship-driven participation
represents Emerson’s bonding solitude that does not yield plurality or discourse but rather
homogeneity and, as empirically demonstrated, no observable offline political engagement.
Thus, given recent communications research and Arendt’s theoretical assertion of bridging
solitude yielding a politically productive plurality, interest-driven participation should be
Jones 31
encouraged among youths to encourage the development of civic engagement both on and
offline, thereby invigorating politics through the fostering of plurality in solitude.
To most effectively encourage bridging solitude, and therefore the transformation of time
physically alone into a valuable form of social capital, these three suggestions should be taken in
concert. Educators and policymakers, as Cohen and Kahne (2012) urge, should encourage online
involvement in interest-driven groups to foster skills that contribute to civic engagement.
Further, these groups should involve language that easily translates to face-to-face relationships
and include a focus on diversity and exposure to divergent opinions. Arendt’s bridging solitude,
along with recent communications research, points to the value and social capital of time alone
and indicates how the internet should not be feared as that which disintegrates the political but
rather a new means of encouraging the plurality that Americans and Arendt find so vital to
political engagement. Arendt’s theory helps us understand that when the Internet is used with
attention to plurality and language, the Internet encourages rather than discourages politics.
Conclusions
Arendt reminds us of human beings’ very social condition, writing, “Plurality is the
condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody
is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live” (Arendt 1998, 8). If our
understanding of solitude were to ignore the human condition, the theoretical solitary experience
would be distinct from the human experience and of virtually no importance when considering
its relationship to the political. This understanding of solitude as reflective of humanity’s natural
interdependence is nicely explicated by Arendt in “Truth and Politics” when she claims, “[E]ven
if I shun all company or am completely isolated while forming an opinion, I am not simply
Jones 32
together only with myself in the solitude of philosophical thought; I remain in this world of
universal interdependence, where I can make myself the representative of everybody
else” (Arendt 1978, 242). As Arendt reminds us, for solitude to be of any relevance to the
political, it must entail a pluralistic characteristic based in real human experiences and not just
imagination without any connection to the political world in which humans dwell freely. Insofar
as we might understand solitude as an internalization of the political, we can come to grasp
solitude as more than an imaginative dialogue—solitude is an interiorization of the human
condition itself. Bridging solitude, therefore, not only entails relationships and networking, but
also a connecting of one’s political life with one’s interior life, and this is the realization and
understanding that individual Americans must have so that we can not just bowl, but also live
and participate in politics, together rather than alone.
Jones 33
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